Shorts Of Distinction #3 - 'Night in a Hotel' (Dir:Daniel Kontur, UK, 2012)

A random act of kindness leads to a transformation in this acclaimed short by Daniel Kontur. I like the 2-part structure to this and how strikingly different both sections are in tone and execution. The scene on the train is particularly effective, with 2 very well cast actors, performing brilliantly.



Night In A Hotel from Daniel Kontur on Vimeo.

Shorts Of Distinction #2 - 'Wind' (Dir:Robert Loebel, Germany, 2013)

As I sit in a severely wind-swept, rocky outcrop on the edge of Europe - this beautifully animated short from Germany seems remarkably apposite. A simple tale, ingeniously told, I love the animation style of this - refreshingly angular and monotone!


WIND from robert loebel on Vimeo.

Shorts of Distinction #1 - 'Old Mate' (Dir:Sam Dixon, AU)

One of the things I have done for enjoyment since 2012, is view short films for the local film fest, pick out the ones that I think are of a high quality, and pass these on to the festival's Head of Shorts for review. Since the number of submissions is vast, many excellent shorts are not selected, which is a bit of a shame, but I have kept a record of some of the ones that impressed me the most and I will share these on an occasional basis.

First up is 'Old Mate', an Australian short from 2013 that deals with peer pressure in a rural setting. It has a dark, foreboding atmosphere and is vaguely reminiscent of that brilliantly surreal work 'Wake in Fright', as well as the films of John Hillcoat. The soundtrack and sound design sit with the film perfectly and the ending is unexpected but highly effective.


Old Mate from Bahloo Pictures on Vimeo.
Enjoy!

Stephen Grosz - The Examined Life

Stephen Grosz - 'The Examined Life' (2013)

Just finished reading this great collection of psychoanalytical case histories; a veritable Pandora's Box, full of strange conditions and foibles and a book I will frequently revisit over the next few years, I suspect.

Here is a fine review of the piece in The Guardian a few years back.

Mariapia Veladiano - A Life Apart

This is an elegant and quite engaging short first novel about a physically 'tainted' young girl who is attempting to come to terms with her apparently extreme ugliness and the secret history behind her mother's chronic depression. Some of this book is very well-written and while overall ultimately it feels a little slight, it has some beautifully observed moments that reminded me of incidents related to people with mental illness in my own life that rang absolutely true. A promising debut and a recipient of many awards in its native Italy that reads well in translation I enjoyed this, if not immensely, then at least a fair amount.

Here is a review from The Irish Times that led me to the work and here is a link to the publishing house MacLehose press

Donal Ryan - 'The Spinning Heart'

Having recently been nominated for the Booker Prize, 'The Spinning Heart' has garnered a lot of praise of late and deservedly so. The fact that the book was initially rejected by 50 publishers is surprising in the extreme - I was hooked right from page 1.

The story is set in small-town, rural Ireland and each chapter is told solely from the point of view of one of the town's inhabitants. The story that pieces itself together over the course of the book is massively compelling and puts paid to any fears that this is just some literary parlour trick.

In its mere 150 pages there exists here a brilliantly described, bittersweet universe and an angry polemic against the greed that has brought most of Europe to its knees. There is much more going on than just raw invective however - Ryan's ear for ribald, naturalistic speech is magnificent and frequently hilarious. On reading it I was instantly reminded of some of the more colourful and somewhat tragic characters of my youth growing up in small-town North Cork and at times I was not sure whether to laugh or cry in response to some of the stories contained within. The interior dialogues are at once both hilarious and gorgeously poetic. There is also hope I would say in its pages as well as deep, deep sorrow.

If an established writer had written this it may well have been acclaimed as a masterpiece, but the fact that it is a first novel is staggering. I look forward massively to reading more from Ryan in the future and would hugely recommend this to all readers.

Here is an interview with the author.

Karen Black RIP

 

I was saddened to hear Karen Black passed away a few days ago (obituary here). She worked with amany of the finest directors of the American 'New Wave' and was usually an odd but particular presence in any film I have seen her in at least. She is probably most famous for her part in 'Five Easy Pieces' opposite Jack Nicholson and was somewhat typecast as a troubled, dumb blonde in her heyday. I remember as a teenager first seeing her and being at once sympathetic to her vulnerabilities, and lazy eye, but also being weirdly repulsed by her for some reason. She certainly made a lasting impression anyhow and this weekend I decided to give one of her films a watch, 'Night of the Locust' from John Schlesinger, 1975, and my what a film it is. It must be one of the darkest representations of Hollywood ever made, almost Jodorowskian at times, like a proto 'Mulholland Dr.' and full of Freudian undertones relative to 'Civilization and its Discontents'. I have never seen anything quite like it - I hugely recommend it to lovers of the surreal and bizarre and Karen Black - fare thee well.

"Another Sky" & "À Perdre la Raison"

Watched these two films recently and both share a common theme of sorts - a spiritual search for personal peace in Morocco by 2 young European women in the throes of an emotional crisis. 'Another Sky' is a 1954 British film written and directed by the Hollywood-blacklisted Gavin Lambert and it's a supremely accomplished film on the emerging sexuality of a young British woman arriving in Morocco to work as a companion to a wealthy English expat woman. During the course of the film, which is gorgeously shot by Walter Lassaly, the young girl falls in love with an itinerant musician and must make a decision whether to abandon her comfortable known existence or to embrace life in the dusty Moroccan wilderness. It's a fascinating piece of mature film-making for its time and is hugely deserving of a wider audience I'd say.

'À Perdre la Raison', clumsily entitled 'Our Children' for the English release, is a masterful French film from 2012 by Joachim Lafosse that is based on a true story about a young woman who marries a Moroccan man with a secret whose life is intricately linked with a wealthy French benefactor. As they raise a family their living situation eventually becomes problematic and the chronically depressed woman finds herself yearning for Morocco and a simpler life. Unfortunately she cannot escape her life in Europe and is finally driven to extreme measures by her mental condition. The performances are all brilliant and Émilie Dequenne in particular is spellbinding. 

In both films the clash between the European and North African cultures is dealt with in an ambiguous, unhistrionic way and both films, although massively different in tone and style, have a lot to offer. Both I would recommend very highly indeed.

Book Review - 'Breakfast in Nudie Suits' by Ian Dunlop

Last week on September 19th saw the anniversary of Gram Parson's death in 1973 in a motel room at Joshua Tree national park. The place has become enshrined as a kind of mythical destination for those seeking to connect with the gods of Rock n' Roll and those who may be, in the parlance of The Mighty Boosh, looking for the 'New Sound' such as U2. It is also an oft-visited destination in Ian Dunlop's recent book 'Breakfast in Nudie Suits' a very engaging beatnik-influenced mix of travelogue and musical reminiscences through whose pages the ghost of Gram wanders in an out of.

Dunlop (above, second from left in photo) was the bass player and friend of Parsons during the formative stages of his career and together they were amongst the first of their generation to re-connect with Country music from the deep south. While many others at the time were looking towards The Beatles and the Stones for musical leads these two were digging the sounds of Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash and harmonising to old Everly Brothers records and forming The International Submarine Band in '65, they would for the next two years play a set of down-home style originals, R n' B and Country cover tunes to mostly perplexed and sometimes downright hostile audiences.

Half of the book chronicles this time up to the point where Dunlop leaves the group as Parsons is about to record the first ISB album with Lee Hazlewood and there are some great accounts of their experiences over those two years including filming a scene for Roger Corman's LSD-explotiation flick 'The Trip', appearing on TV host/horror star Zacherle's music show with Shirley Ellis and playing a multitude of gigs where people harass them for playing Country music. The ISB never had much luck as a band - Corman found their music inappropriate for The Trip and overdubbed a song from The Electric Flag instead and the release of their album was shrouded in ill feeling as Parsons was deemed to have broken his contract with Hazlewood's record company by joining The Byrds. Without much label backing it sank without trace. However, a few years later and The Eagles would saddle up The ISB pony and ride it all the way to the bank.

(Here is The ISB's brief appearance in 'The Trip' - Warning: there be breasts)

http://youtu.be/3EN5okO2Ve4?t=2m20s

Dunlop, having had enough of playing before indifferent audiences with the ISB, left the group before the recording of the album and unsure what to do next with his life decided to drive across America in a beaten-up, old VW camper van in the company of Barry Tashian and Bill Briggs, two members of the seminal Boston garage-rock band The Remains. The book cuts between scenes describing this ramshackle trip in the American hinterlands and swirling scenes describing the true adventures of the ISB in the big city and by and large the contrast between the two works very well. There are some vignettes that will resonate with collectors of vinyl and guitar lovers in particular as Dunlop picks up stacks of unwanted 45's and 78's during his travels, even though his VW seems perilously close to collapsing from the weight, and there is an in-depth account of how he acquires his early model Telecaster which will have twang-busters salivating. Along the way he obtains shellac'd gems like this: Bill Haley & the Comets - Hook, Line & Sinker and describes with great love and detail the sounds that he finds particularly rewarding from the fifties and early sixties.

Parsons comes across as an easygoing and likeable soul who has an underlying sad aspect and attraction to the darker sides of life. The stoned conversations between Dunlop and Parsons that litter the text here are amusing but at some points this darkness comes through. At one stage he surprises Dunlop with his memories of his father's suicide at the age of 12, two days before Christmas and in describing his love of Country notes:

"There is so much passion in the negativity (of Country music). Some good sounds come out from behind them ol' dark curtains... It's mostly about murder, death, drinkin'. The sins of the South. Really unhappy, morbid lyrics. It's the opposite of 'Good Day Sunshine' yeah? I love all that dark music about prison walls, lonely people drowning in booze, tryin' to hide their pasts and their adultery"

This book is certainly not just about Parsons, although its packaging may have you thinking otherwise, but as a scrapbook of literary polaroids from a particularly loaded moment in American musical and political history it well worth tracking down and one of the best music-related books I have read from this year.

It can be bought here.

Incidentally and as an endnote, that man Zacherle was an interesting fellow - here is a great clip of his music show in the 60's featuring the Box Tops and a very young Alex Chilton

'Nothing to Envy' - Barbara Demick

This is a fascinating book of oral history about everyday life in North Korea over the last 30 years or so. Some of the hardships, sadnesses and brutalities described here are almost beyond belief and those whose stories populate these pages are truly courageous, strong and remarkable folk. The book is slightly let down by its poor editing with lots of repetitions slipping through the net but the histories described here are so compelling that one is inclined to forgive this very minor weakness. The final chapter, simply called 'Waiting', is a fine piece of poetic journalism and the world still waits to see what will happen next in this troubled part of Eastern Asia.

Some of the anecdotes are also quite funny in a very grim way and the lyrics from the NK patriotic song translations are notable for their directness.

'Where are we Going?':

Where have we gone?
We have gone to the forest.
Where are we going?
We are going over the hills.
What are we going to do?
We are going to kill the Japanese soldiers.

And here is another timeless classic 'Shoot the Yankee Bastards:


Our enemies are the American Bastards
Who are trying to take over my beautiful homeland
With guns that I make with my own hands
I will shoot them. BANG, BANG, BANG.

Highly recommended.

http://nothingtoenvy.com/about-barbara-demick/

Moonrise Kingdom

For those who don't know it, Hank Williams' hit song of 1952 'Kaw-Liga' tells the story of a wooden Indian statue that falls in love 'with an Indian maiden over by the antique store'. Tragically, since he has a stubborn heart made of knotty pine he is unable or unwilling to approach the maiden. Like Duchamp's Bride and her Bachelors she is destined to remain forever beyond his grasp until eventually she disappears one day, bought by a wealthy customer and the old wooden Indian curses his luck wishing he was still an old pine tree.

This song, along with many other Hank classics, features heavily in Wes Anderson's latest film 'Moonrise Kingdom', an amiable fantasy very much in line with Anderson's previous films in terms of style and direction. Whereas some directors such as the Coens or Daniel Aronofsky move from subject to subject finding material that engages them in different genres, Anderson has invented his own cinematic world and seems happy to endlessly refine it. A similar director perhaps would be Tim Burton in that he has a desire to forcibly project 'his' world onto celluloid, sometimes at the expense of narrative coherence but whereas Burton takes his inspiration from gothic literature and Expressionist cinema, Anderson has less obvious influences to my mind. Maybe a bit of Gatsby here and a soupçon of Jacques Demy there but by and large he has formed his own mode of expression and is thusly hailed by some as one of America's few bona-fide old-school auteurs along the lines of Fellini, Antonioni and Hitchcock. A few others think he is a mere hipster puppet master, all style no substance, all charm and no bite. I hugely enjoyed 'The Life Aquatic' and 'Rushmore' so I suppose I tend to be 'Pro-Wes' in general but I realise that charm, like invective depends on ceaseless inspiration and when the well runs dry there is little to fall back on. Thankfully here Anderson is full of the ol' charm-beans and has made to my mind perhaps his best film yet.

Going back a little, if you took only one frame from any of the afore-mentioned directors' films you could probably identify who made what immediately and Anderson's films share this visual distinctness which in my book is a definite achievement. The art department on 'Moonrise Kingdom' must have worked a huge amount of overtime - every piece of clothing, fabric, wallpaper and decoration is meticulously and beautifully put together and although the film is nominally set in the 60's the overall design doesn't set out to conjure up that era at all but instead presents us with 'WesWorld' where form is content and the medium is absolutely the message. Unlike some of his other films however which are picaresque in the extreme this one has a very definite 3-act story with beginning, middle and end and consequently I think is one of his most impressive efforts. The obsession with uniformity, the search for acceptance in spite of eccentricity, the damage done by quarreling parents to their children and the quest for an authoritarian but lovable father figure are four themes that are found frequently in Anderson's movies and all are present and correct here but whereas in previous films these kind of pop up in a somewhat haphazard way, here they have a stronger narrative force driving them along and the film's overall emotional impact was higher for me compared to some of his other work.

I also found it funnier. The story is like something Enid Blyton or Arthur Ransome of 'Swallows & Amazons' fame would have written had they lived in New York around the time of 'Annie Hall' - basically a tale of ripping Boy/Girl scout derring-do with a bit of existential angst thrown in for good measure. The heroes of the piece are a young boy and girl who decide to run away from the society which surrounds them on a small island off the coast of New England. Both are outsiders, both seek to escape their troubled environments and the story of this escape is done with great lightness of touch and filled with great little moments including humourous cameos from notably Tilda Swinton and Harvey Keitel. Many of the usual Anderson acting stable appear here such as Bill Murray and all are good but the film hangs on the two central performances by the young actors, both of whom are outstanding.

By presenting us this light-hearted story in a space and time which is a few steps removed from our everyday reality it's as if Anderson expresses his feelings of not quite feeling at home in this world and seeks to create some kind of version of his ideal world on the screen, which is perhaps what all film-makers do in some way. Nothing in the frame ever feels as if chance was present in the movie making process and the director's control is always absolute. This approach may eventually lead to stagnation at some point but for now Anderson has given us a little gem of a film that goes some way to answering his critics and makes one wonder where is he going to go from here. And unlike poor old Kaw-Liga I think in creating the world and characters of 'Moonrise Kingdom' he is far more successful in breaking free from the shackles of one reality and materialising the objects of his desire. In a word, charming.

Sam Phillips - The man who let loose the Hillbilly Cats

On this day nine years ago in 2003 Sam Phillips moved on up to the great recording studio in the sky. Arguably one of the most influential music figures of the last 100 years, Phillips' Sun Studios in Memphis, Tennessee unleashed Elvis, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins on the world and it has never been the same since.

It's nigh on impossible to single out one favourite track from the Sun catalog but I've always had a soft spot for this one.

For further reading check out Greil Marcus' masterful book 'Mystery Train' which has an outstanding section on Sun Records and the dawn of Elvis.

From 'Herzog on Herzog'

Going through a bit of a Werner Herzog-fest at the moment. This is from a book published in 2002 -

'I have often spoken of what I call the inadequate imagery of
today's civilization. I have the impression that the images that surround
us today are worn out; they are abused and useless and
exhausted. They are limping and dragging themselves behind the
rest of our cultural evolution. When I look at the postcards in
tourist shops and the images and advertisements that surround us
in magazines, or I turn on the television, or if I walk into a travel
agency and see those huge posters with that same tedious image of
the Grand Canyon on them, I truly feel there is something dangerous
emerging here. The biggest danger, in my opinion, is television
because to a certain degree it ruins our vision and makes us very
sad and lonesome. Our grandchildren will blame us for not having
tossed hand-grenades into TV stations because of commercials.
Television kills our imagination and what we end up with are
worn-out images because of the inability of too many people to
seek out fresh ones.

As a race we have become aware of certain dangers that surround
us. We comprehend, for example, that nuclear power is a
real danger for mankind, that over-crowding of the planet is the
greatest of all. We have understood that the destruction of the
environment is another enormous danger. But I truly believe that
the lack of adequate imagery is a danger of the same magnitude. It
is as serious a defect as being without memory. What have we done
to our images? What have we done to our embarrassed landscapes?
I have said this before and will repeat it again as long as I
am able to talk: if we do not develop adequate images we will die
out like dinosaurs. Look at the depiction of Jesus in our iconography,
unchanged since the vanilla ice-cream kitsch of the
Nazarene school of painting in the late nineteenth century. These
images alone are sufficient proof that Christianity is moribund. We
need images in accordance with our civilization and our innermost
conditioning, and this is the reason why I like any film that
searches for new images no matter in what direction it moves or
what story it tells. One must dig like an archaeologist and search
our violated landscape to find anything new. It can sometimes be a
struggle to find unprocessed and fresh images.'

As the T-shirt says - 'No i dont know who won X-factor because im not a fucking moron'.

Cork Film Fest - 'Locked Groove' accepted.

I'm very pleased to announce that my lil' doc has been accepted for the Cork FIlm Fest 2010. Now where can i get a tuxedo...

Message To Love (Lerner 1970)

Watched this again last weekend - one of the key documentary chronicles of the hippie era. This is the moment where business and idealism met head on and the aftermath of which gave us both Baader Meinhof and, in a convoluted way, The Eagles... 

The weekend ticket price of £3 to see Cohen, Hendrix, Dylan etc. on the same bill seems very amusing now.  A great film, much better than Lerner's earlier 'Woodstock', this is one all lovers of music and anyone with an interest in the 60's should check out ASAP.

IMDB link to film

Locked Groove Wallpaper 1

(Photo - Patricia Klich)

Locked Groove - A Documentary

I am pleased to announce that editing is almost complete on a documentary film I have been working on for the last 2 months, 'Locked Groove'. This film documents a performance conceived and conducted by the Cork based DJ, writer and music historian John Byrne. The performance consisted of 20 people operating turntables playing records containing what is known as a 'locked groove' -  a sound that sits on the last groove of a record (usually) and loops until the machine is turned off. This all happened in Saint Finbarr's Cathedral in late July 2010 under the title 'Bricklayers Lament' as part of the Sonic Vigil Sound Art festival.

The film consists of interviews and footage of the preparations and performance itself along with animations by the artist Tom Doig and voice contributions from the noted musician and composer Giordaí ua Laoghaire. 


The film will be soon displayed in Cork for its first ever showing so watch this space for future developments...


(Photo by Patricia Klich)

First Blog test thing

All this crazy gift of time.